A Day Trip to Bath by Katherine Webb

I was recently blindsided somewhat by a journalist who'd come over to the UK from Germany to interview me, I thought, about my latest release over there. It turned out that she was after a travel piece on Bath instead, and after floundering for a moment when she asked me to close me eyes and tell her 'What is Bath?', I was able to talk at length about this wonderful historic city, so full of its own character (and, my sister would remark, also full of itself).

I live about eight miles outside of Bath, in the countryside, but proximity to Bath was definitely a pull factor when moving to the area. And, within weeks of moving down here, I'd started a novel set in Bath in 1820 (The Misbegotten). I couldn't seem to help it - the atmosphere of all things Georgian and Regency was too powerful! So this month I thought I'd blog about Bath and some of its famous faces, and recommend it to anybody wanting a day trip this summer to a place that wears its history on its sleeve.

Well, I kind of have to start with this lady. Although Jane Austen only lived in Bath for a few years, she remains firmly associated with the place. Bath features as the setting of 'Persuasion', and gets a mention in other Austen books as well, and there's a Jane Austen museum and festival for fans here. It's just as interesting to visit The Assembly Rooms, however, at which Austen is known to have attended functions. Designed in 1769 by John Wood the Younger, the Assembly Rooms are now owned by the National Trust and you can go and have a wander around the grand tearoom, the octagon room where the men would have played cards, and the ballroom with its fantastic chandeliers - now electric, but in Austen's day holding hundreds of candles. The heat rising from all the thronging, dancing bodies below was often so great that the candles melted, and dribbled hot wax onto the party-goers. http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/bath-assembly-rooms

John Wood the Younger (1728-1782), and his father John Wood the Elder (1704-1754), were the architects who had the most influence on the building of Bath in the Georgian era. Between them the pair designed the most iconic of Bath's seven elegant crescents - The Royal Crescent - as well as The Circus, Queen Square, Gay Street, The Royal Mineral Water Hospital and Prior Park, private residence of Ralph Allen, about whom more shortly, and much more. The Woods' designs pioneered Bath's neo-classical, Palladian grandeur, still so much in evidence today. When it was built in 1775, The Royal Crescent was on the edge of the city, with no other buildings in front of it to spoil the view for the residents. The same cannot be said today, but I can report that Barton Fields, as shown above, have indeed never been built on.

The newly completed Circus in the late 1700s

Another person strongly linked to Bath's Georgian soul is Richard 'Beau' Nash (1674-1761), Master of Ceremonies from 1704 onwards. This was an unofficial title, but it put Beau Nash into a position of tremendous social influence, and helped make Bath the height of fashion in its heyday in the early 1700s. An early career in the army and then as a barrister clearly didn't suit the fun-loving Beau Nash, who had a gambling problem and lived with a string of mistresses. As MC of Bath, he would meet new arrivals, decide who was 'in' and who was not, broker marriages, arrange balls, keep a check on the worst gamblers, and accompany lone women to dances. He is also credited with encouraging a break down in the strict social boundaries between the upper and middle classes in Bath, although this might have backfired on him slightly as Bath fell out of fashion towards the end of the century, came to be seen as vulgar and old hat, the haunt of spinsters and invalids, and to be passed over by fashionistas in favour of Lyme Regis and other seaside resorts.

One more Georgian notable for you: Ralph Allen (1693-1764). Allen started out as a clerk in the Post Office at a young age, and by the age of 19, in 1712, became the postmaster of Bath. With a series of reforms and innovations, he increased the office's profits and reach to such an extent that he became a wealthy man. He bought up stone quarries in the local area, recognising the growing demand for the honey-coloured Bath stone in bringing the Woods' designs to life, and thus became a very wealthy man indeed. On a hill to the south east of Bath sits the Sham Castle, an elaborate folly built to give Allen something to look at from his townhouse in the city.

In 1742, Ralph Allen hired John Wood the Younger to build Prior Park, a Palladian mansion to the south of Bath, which he later moved in to. It is in a truly wonderful setting, with long reaching views of the city and a quintessential C18th garden, designed with the help of Capability Brown, which has one of only four Palladian bridges of its kind in the world. The house itself now houses a school, but the National Trust has the gardens, and they're lovely to visit. http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/prior-park-landscape-garden

The bridge has lots of interesting old graffiti, if you like that kind of thing (which I do) - showing that whilst standards of handwriting have declined over the years, standards of behaviour are much the same as they ever were!

There are so many Georgian wonders in Bath - don't miss the Florentine Pulteney Bridge, either, completed in 1774. Palladian again, this time designed by Robert Adam, the bridge has shops on along either side of its span across the River Avon - but its history goes back a lot further than that. The reason anybody came here in the first place was for the hot water springs, first settled by the Romans who named the city Aquae Sulis - meaning the waters of Sulis. Sulis was the native British goddess to whom the locals had built a shrine on the site. Britain's only hot water thermal springs, the waters were soon enclosed within a huge Roman bath and temple complex, now wonderfully excavated and fascinating to visit (incidentally, you can bathe in the hot spring water yourself, at nearby Thermae Spa - the rooftop pool has wonderful views of the city. You can drink it too, just like a Georgian invalid, in the Roman Baths visitor centre, although I don't think there's much to be gained by it - very eggy.).

The Roman Bath complex

Thanks to Georgian fashion and bombing in WWII, the medieval city of Bath is harder to spot. The Abbey, now in a late C15th form, sits on top of two older churches, and is very beautiful inside - fan vaulting galore. Sally Lunn's Historic Eating House is most famous for being the only place to get a Bath Bun - like a brioche, and very tasty - but for me the real treat in going there is to go down into the basement museum, which recreates kitchens of the past, and where you can see open excavations going down through the centuries, proving that there has been a house on that spot for over a thousand years. The medieval city walls and gates have sadly gone, but many houses in the area to the south of and immediately around the abbey are in fact medieval buildings, hunkered down behind tacked-on Georgian fronts.

I've got this far and not mentioned the Kennet and Avon canal, or Sydney Gardens, or William Herschel, or the Pump Rooms, or any one of a hundred other historical things to see in Bath. It is truly a unique city with a remarkable history, and an absolute must-see for anybody interested in our Roman or Georgian history.

Life Patterns - Celia Rees

I will admit here, I am no quilter, although I know some of my fellow History Girls are and I'm sure we will number quilters among our followers.

Quilt, Jen Jones Welsh Quilt Centre, Lampeter

When I was in the Sixth Form there was a craze for quilting. In those days, Liberty's would send swatches of material to anyone who asked for them. I remember being entranced by the beauty of the Liberty patterns, the richness of the William Morris designs, but unlike some of my friends, I never actually made a quilt. One of my friends from those days still has the quilt she made. The Liberty pieces are mixed with humbler fabrics, bits of school shirt and summer dresses. When I see it, it takes me straight back to that time.

I might not have actually done any sewing, but quilts and quilting stayed with me. Like many writers, I'm often asked where my ideas come from. They are often just there in the ragbag of past enthusiasms and passing interests waiting to be plucked out and worked up into something. So it was with quilts and quilting. I've blogged about my visit to the American Museum, Bath and its connection to Witch Child  Witch Child at the American Museum, Bath - Celia Rees . On my original visit, I didn't go there to look at quilts. I went to see the quilts on display because they interested me anyway. If I hadn't had that interest, I might not have bothered and I would not have had the idea that allowed me to write Witch Child.

Stitch and Write American Museum, Bath

Though researching and writing Witch Child, I learnt a great deal about quilts and quilting. Quilts at the time Witch Child is set (17th Century) would have been all of a piece (as the one shown above), not patchwork, with which we are more familiar. There could, however, I reasoned, have been quilts made out of pieces of material. This was mostly because I wanted one in the book, but it made sense to me, woman sense. My mother, my grandmother, her mother before her kept scraps of material and made bed covers, cushion covers, by piecing them together, nothing would be wasted. That was relatively recently, how much more precious would cloth have been in 17th Century America?  The fact that there are none of these kinds of quilts from this period doesn't mean that they never existed. It just means that they were worn out with every day use, not precious enough to be preserved.  

These pieced quilts are my favourites. I can admire and appreciate the beauty and intricacy of patchwork quilt designs: Tumbling Dice, Log Cabin, Rose Wreath, String of Flags (even the names are wonderful); the striking originality of the Amish and Mennonite quilts; the ancient symbolism contained in recurring motifs of flowers, fruits, cups, the tree of life. Above all, I can celebrate and admire the women's work, the artistic creativity expressed through the designs. Even so, the quilts I love best are those that are made from every day materials, from clothes that have been worn and worn again: shirts, waistcoats, even pyjamas. Stiff flannel softened by wear and washing to the smoothness of heavy silk, the colours faded, one pastel shade blending into another.

Jen Jones  “Early to Bed” Exhibition, Welsh Quilt Centre, Lampeter 

This example is from the 2014 "Early to Bed" Exhibition of Folk Art and “Make-do and Mend” in the work of the rural quilters of 19th century Wales at Jen Jones wonderful Welsh Quilt Centre in Lampeter, West Wales: http://www.jen-jones.com . Quilts like these provide not only a palimpsest of rural economy and thrift but a record of working people's lives.

Shirts provide many of the patches in these kinds of quilts. The shirt is personal to the wearer, carrying his scent, retaining his shape.  In the past, to sew and launder a shirt was an act of love.

As I did the washing one day


Under the bridge at Aberteifi,


And a golden stick to drub it,


And my sweetheart's shirt beneath it--


A knight came by upon a charger,


Proud and swift and broad of shoulder,


And he asked if I would sell


The shirt of the lad that I loved well.

No, I said, I will not trade--


Not if a hundred pounds were paid;


Not if two hillsides I could keep


Full with wethers and white sheep;


Not if two fields full of oxen


Under yoke were in the bargain;


Not if the herbs of all Llanddewi,


Trodden and pressed, were offered to me--


Not for the likes of that,

I'd sell 
the shirt of the lad that I love well.....

The Shirt of a Lad - Anonymous (tr. Tony Conran)

Artist and friend Julia Griffiths-Jones chose this poem to include in her body of work, Unwinding the Thread, translating words into the images that might be embroidered on such a shirt,  re-producing the designs in aluminium wire, pewter and enamelled copper wire.

Shirt of a Lad - Julia Griffiths-Jones

In the folk song, Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme, the making of a shirt without no seams nor needlework is one of the true love tasks impossible to achieve. So shirts gain significance, personal and sentimental. Shirts are so much a part of what a person is, or was. Another friend, Barbara Crowther, describes in a Guardian article how she has found a way to use the shirts left by her husband, Dick, who died suddenly and tragically three years ago. Dick was a man who loved his shirts, especially striped shirts, stripes of all kinds and colours: thick, thin, bright, dark and pastel.  Instead of leaving his shirts shut away in the dark, in a suitcase in the attic, Barbara brought them out into the light again and took them to her friend Louise Charters, an upholsterer and soft furnisher, who has turned them into something beautiful for Dick's daughters, Eleanor and Georgia, to remember their father by. 

Barbara Crowther and her daughter, Georgia Leith
David Sillitoe for the Guardian

David Sillitoe for the Guardian

This blog seems to have turned into a bit of a patchwork itself. I'll finish with an odd piece of serendipity. The day after I wrote  this blog, I went to Modern Art Oxford to see an exhibition: Love is Enough, William Morris and Andy Warhol. A young woman artist, Diana Taylor, had just finished a textile workshop. 

Now here's the odd thing - my maiden name was Taylor and the beautiful hangings filling the foyer were made, in part at least, from William Morris designs. 

Celia Rees

www.celiarees.com

Transport in Georgian Bath: The Sedan Chair





Sedan Chair

 

 

by Marie-Louise Jensen

 

 

When I first began planning a story set in Georgian Bath, I assumed that horses and carriages were the normal mode of transport within the city. I was completely wrong.

 

There were several good reasons why. Firstly, the city of Bath in the early days of the reign of George I was really tiny. Just a handful of streets, squares and alleys. There was no way it would have been worth harnessing horses to the carriage for the short journey to the hot baths or the assembly rooms. Space was also at a premium in a city still confined by its medieval walls. The city was full to bursting with visitors during the season and there never would have been space for stabling for everyone as well.

The streets and alleys of Bath were both narrow and steep and filled with piles of refuse besides, which would have made them impassable to horses and carriages.

The city expanded greatly through the 18th century, spilling out over its original city walls into the green space around. The new streets were wider, grander and cleaner but they were even steeper than before as the city climbed into the surrounding hills. Sedan chairs continued to be used, even once they had fallen into disuse in London. Some of the grander new houses even had huge curved porches incorporated into their design to allow the chair to be carried right into the house and turned around there, so that the wealthy passengers did not need to walk out into the street to climb in. In their defence, it does rain A LOT in Bath.

 

The chairmen in Bath were notorious. They ran through the streets with scant attention to hapless pedestrians who were expected to keep out of their way. Apparently they did call out a warning, such as 'Have care!' or 'By your leave!' though they gave way to no one. At night they were obliged to either carry a lamp or be accompanied by a link boy with lighted flambeau, but accidents happened nonetheless; pedestrians were run down, passengers were spilled, chairs were smashed.

Chairmen jostled one another in their eagerness to collect passengers and fights regularly broke out between rival chairmen. They terrified ladies with their coarse language and swearing (!),  and they were known for locking their passengers into their chair and refusing to let them out until whatever exorbitant fare they chose to demand had been paid. If the passenger was stubborn, they would open the roof and let the rain in on them. (The roofs could be opened to allow passengers to wear tall hats, feathers or elaborate hairstyles undamaged, though presumably only on dry days).

Beau Nash fought an ongoing battle with the sedan chairman who preyed on visitors to the city and was responsible for a licence being introduced. After that, each chair bore a number and could be reported for infringing the rules.

Eventually the sedan chair was replaced by the wheeled Bath Chair. Our present taxi system still bears the same numbered system of licences that were introduced for the sedan chairs all those years ago.